The news of yet another refusal of its plans for a swimming pool in the town has brought a sharp response from Bromyard and District Swimming Pool Trust.
“We are just going round and round in circles, on and on,” said trust chairman Bill Gibbard.
“First the planning authority said there was no need for a pool here, and it would hit existing county facilities.
“But it’s a private development – the effect on county council pools should have nothing to do with it.
“Then they said they didn’t like the access through a residential estate. So we re-submitted the plans using extra land to provide a different access.
“Now they say that because we have included additional land the application is materially different and therefore can’t be accepted as a resubmission.
“They were the ones who suggested that they didn’t like access through the estate. We suggested an alternative, and now we are being made to pay for it.”
Mr Gibbard said he would now have to re-assess the situation with the trust’s officers.
“Herefordshire Council has given us some ideas to think over,” he said. “I think we may suggest using the route through the estate as pedestrian access, and put in a new application for vehicular access off Upper Hardwick Lane.”
Herefordshire Council refused the original planning application because it was not satisfied that the need for a swimming pool in Bromyard has been established. It said there was an “over-provision of water space” in the county, and extra facilities would hit existing pools.
The site was in open countryside, not readily accessible to the town, said planners. They didn’t like the access through a residential estate.
The development would be “visually intrusive and detrimental to its surrounding area.”
In an attempt to deal with the council’s objections, the trust resubmitted the scheme with a new access. The council rejected it again, saying it was invalid as a resubmission because extra land had been included.
Mr Gibbard has since written to the council saying the trust is “at a loss” to understand the refusal.
Creating an alternative access “must result in extra land being required, purely to establish an acceptable alternative,” he said.
“We are just going round in circles,” Mr Gibbard said. “All we are trying to do is provide an amenity for local people.”
